The Wall Street Journal has waded into the debate over whether flight data generated by private aircrafts should be considered public information even if aircraft owners request that the data be blocked from public view. The WSJ has published the previously blocked data, obtained via a FOIA request to the FAA, in its Jet Tracker database. The WSJ's database includes all non-commercial flight data for 2007 through 2010. Results tables include the tail number and associated operator/owner, flight dates and departure/arrival destinations. The WSJ also included average flight times for each trip and calculated the estimated operating cost of each flight.
Note that, according to The WSJ, the database is currently limited to searches saved by The WSJ due to "technical difficulties."
Read this WSJ article to learn more about the data.
For more information about flight data as public record, revisit our previous blog entries on the topic:
- Public Flight Tracking Information - Useful for Everything from Following the Coaching Carousel to Competitive Intelligence
- Aircraft Registration and Flight Tracking
- Flight Plans